Most successful of the major works on the album, it starts with crashing left hand piano notes and a delicate right hand melody before the band joins forces in a rather obvious 'edit'. Peter offers some ringing phrases like "The scene of death is lying just below", and plays a flute duet with the keyboards. In the background it's possible to detect a howl from Phil that sounds like an early ancestor of 'Mama'. The swirling pattems developed by Banks and Hackett here would become familiar to fans at the band's increasingly grandiose stadium shows.
Lyrics
FIRTH OF FIFTH
The path is clear
Though no eyes can see
The course laid down long before.
And so with gods and men
The sheep remain inside their pen,
Though many times they've seen the way to leave.
He rides majestic
Past homes of men
Who care not or gaze with joy,
To see reflected there
The trees, the sky, the lily fair,
The scene of death is lying just below.
The mountains cuts off the town from view,
Like a cancer growth is removed by skill.
Let it be revealed.
A waterfall, his madrigal.
An inland sea, his symphony.
Undinal songs
Urge the sailors on
Till lured by sirens' cry.
Now as the river dissolves in sea,
So Neptune has claimed another soul.
And so with gods and men
The sheep remain inside their pen,
Until the Shepherd leads his flock away.
The sands of time were eroded by
The river of constant change.
